


Sally Donovan Investigates

by spycandy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/spycandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three mysteries and two gifts</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sally Donovan Investigates

The park was one of those shabby yet meticulously-kept patches of green scattered around the outer London boroughs, clearly the pride and joy of some council groundsman with a limited budget. Heavy pink roses bobbed in the rain, scenting the air as DI Sally Donovan crunched her way along the path towards yet another murder victim.

The detective called out a cheerful 'morning' to the two young constables who were redirecting curious early morning walkers while attempting to tie uncooperative fluttering blue and white police tape to a litter bin. The body, sprawled right across the gravel path, had been discovered by a man walking his dogs.

“Could be a robbery,” offered one of the uniformed pair.

“And they left behind a thousand pound watch? Not very likely.” Donovan knelt beside the body. There was a piece of jewellery missing though. The indentation on the fourth finger of the man's left hand showed that he had, until recently, worn a wedding ring. But not as recently as last night, that was certain. There was no pale line in his deep tan, as there was behind the expensive watch.

“Recently separated and splashing out on exotic holidays, designer suits and fancy treats,” she said out loud to no-one in particular, since no other members of CID appeared to have yet arrived at the scene and the two uniforms had already gone back to muttering to each other about the weather. They soon stopped and stared at the senior officer as she stooped closer to the body and sniffed, receiving a noseful of expensive cologne. Satisfied, Sally got back to her feet and brushed the gravel from the knees of her dark grey trouser suit.

She looked around, taking in the immediate surroundings. On one side of the path were tennis courts, enclosed by high chainlink fencing, while the other side opened out onto a well-kept grass area. About 15 metres further along the path was a painted wooden cabin with a dilapidated sign advertising Cornettos and Flake 99s. Although the cabin was thoroughly shuttered, the roof overhang of the small building provided the only cover where a killer might have sheltered from the previous night's persistent drizzle while awaiting their prey.

There was only one set of footprints there, but there were a lot of them. Someone in kitten heels had paced on the damp ground for some time. Tiny flakes of ash trodden into the prints meant that... yes! There it was.

Sally tugged a small evidence bag out of her pocket and flicked the cigarette butt into it. If the park was less well-kept there might have been dozens of soggy fag ends to choose from, but this one had been quite alone. There was a smear of mauve lipstick on it, but it was more likely to be that which was not visible to the naked eye that would reveal their killer.

As her DS ducked under the police line and raised a hand in greeting, Sally handed him the evidence bag. “We'll need a DNA analysis of that checked against the ex-wife and new girlfriend,” she told him.

The look he gave her was a remarkably familiar one. _Freak._ Funny how she used to be on the other end of that accusation.

>>>

She was already searching the cluttered dressing table when DI Lestrade showed the consulting detective and his ever-present sidekick into the tiny room, which felt even smaller since everyone had to sidle around the body lying on the floor.

“She left a message somewhere,” she told them, but her boss had already launched into his explanation of what they already knew about the victim – which amounted to pretty, young and thin. There were no signs of violence, but a sudden death backstage at a major fashion show counted as suspicious circumstances in the organisers' view and Sally was inclined to agree.

As per frustratingly often though, no one listened to what she had to say. Women colleagues had warned her of how often their words at a divisional meeting would be ignored, only to merit praise when parroted moments later by one of the boys. But Sally Donovan had joined the police to fight crime, not equality tribunals, so she gritted her teeth and continued the search, listening to Sherlock work it out for his rapt audience.

“... her eye make up is shimmering green, so why is she holding a grey pencil? And it's flat blunt. She wrote something somewhere when she knew she was dying...”

Both John and DI Lestrade looked impressed and Sally held back a sigh and turned back to peering down the back of a radiator.

“... which is exactly what Sally said when we walked in here.”

 _Oh!_

He flashed her a huge grin, eyes sparkling with amusement. “Found it yet?”

“No sign of it anywhere.”

“It's a small room. It can't take much searching.”

Indeed they couldn't all search at once, since they could barely turn around in the space available.

“Shoo!” said Sherlock, pushing the other two men out into the corridor so that he could stretch out on the floor and peer at the skirting boards. The reward for her insight was apparently to be allowed to help him search the room.

And then Sally noticed something else. Ever since they had arrived at the crime scene the door had been propped open against the wall, but it had had to be forced open when the model failed to show up at the catwalk, which meant it had been closed when she died. She almost jumped over the body in her excitement and haste to check her theory, but instead managed to squeak out, “the door.”

Sherlock grasped her meaning immediately and sprang back to his feet. He kicked out the wooden wedge holding the door open and closed it with a magician-like flourish, muffling the noises of protest from the two men in the corridor.

There on the back of the door, scrawled in grey eyeliner pencil, the letters increasingly wobbly as the message went on, the dying model had given not only the name of her poisoner but of the criminal gang he worked for.

>>>

Of course, a single simple deduction hadn't convinced anyone of her brilliance. It certainly hadn't made Sherlock Holmes suddenly decide to mentor DS Sally Donovan in the science of deduction. And it didn't help that her observation at the next crime scene Sherlock attended only prompted a mortifying, “ _What?_ No!” which felt worse than being ignored, although on reflection probably wasn't.

Nevertheless, Sally saw the case of the murdered model (John gave her _some_ of the credit for solving it on his blog) as the turning point in her career. Somehow every irritating, patronising lecture had taken root in her brain, while as the stomach-churning horror she used to feel over every violent and untimely death was gradually replaced not by the cold indifference so many other police seemed to develop, but by uncurling curiosity.

The change worried her at first. She had no wish to become some ghoulish crime scene thrill junkie, definitely didn't like finding herself twiddling her thumbs at the station on a wet Friday afternoon, wishing that PC Thunderstorm wasn't actually quite so good at crime prevention. No, she would never become like _him_.

But as her suggestions were met with, “Yes! And?” or “What about his ear?” and finally, “Hah! Donovan, you may make a detective after all,” the satisfaction of putting away a succession of villains began to outweigh her concerns.

When her promotion came through, DI Lestrade had clapped her on the shoulder and told her it was well-deserved. She was a rising star, a bright young thing and, well, Brent might not be the most glamorous outpost of the Metropolitan police, far from the bright lights of the West End, but it had no shortage of interesting criminals.

Sherlock didn't attend her leaving do. He and John were away on some private client's case in the south of France, but she doubted that he'd have gone anyway.

On the first morning in her new office at Kilburn police station, the desk sergeant brought a pale brown jiffy bag, addressed to her by her new rank. The postal frank said it was from Cranfield University, which left her none the wiser, so she opened it cautiously, using a long-handled letter opener borrowed from one of her new colleagues.

Out dropped a hardback book, bound in soft blue fabric covers of the type used on one-off bespoke book printings. Silver lettering embossed on the spine told her it was, “A Survey of Soil Types in the Boroughs of Brent and Harrow.” There was no card and Sally didn't need to open the book to know there'd be no inscription. It didn't need one.

>>>

The crime scene was eerily familiar. The dowdy chintz curtains, the faded pink velvet three-piece suite, the old-fashioned electric fire with plastic coals all aglow – and the corpse laid out neatly on the flowery carpet, wearing a vivid green tasselled curtain tie-back like a hideous necklace.

The victim, one Mary Guildford, according to the tearful niece who had discovered the body, was another woman in late middle age, more petite than Iris Damm who had died in such similar circumstances not a week earlier. Few details of the earlier death had been reported in the press, certainly not the use of soft furnishings as a murder weapon, so a copycat killing was unlikely. Far more probable that DI Donovan had a serial killer on her hands.

Once again the curtain tie surely did not come from the crime scene, unless Miss Guildford had paired emerald green with powder pink. Sally made a mental note to check the colour schemes of the other rooms before turning to the kittens-in-shoes calendar hanging on the wall above the sideboard. She flicked through the appointments for haircuts and bakesales, hoping for a quick connection to Mrs Damm. Were they members of the same bridge club or church? Both volunteers for some do-gooding organisation? There was nothing obvious, but she would have one of the officers cross-check properly later.

So it wasn't as if she was at a dead end, oh no. She could, absolutely, do this by herself. She would puzzle it out eventually – although not as quickly as he would, which was a consideration when more women with horrible taste in interior design could be at risk. Catching a multiple murderer would be a major feather in her cap at this point in her career. However...

Stooping to the body, Sally used her phone to snap a photograph of the tassel, framed by Miss Guildford's blue and white polka dot blouse and livid purple bruising. She immediately sent the picture to a number she had so often begged her former boss not to call.

There was no need for words or gift-wrapping. This was the best thank you present she could possibly ever give him.


End file.
